EBME Expo
“With this in mind, we have been working for the last three years with IHEEM on the development of a programme for ‘Authorised Engineers for Medical Devices’. If you don’t know what an authorised engineer is, it’s somebody who looks at the strategic governance of a specific area within an NHS Trust. They are not working for the NHS Trust but are independent. They have Authorising Engineers for a variety of healthcare related areas, but not for medical devices, so IHEEM is now in the process of approving this new role,” John Sandham revealed. The new AE (MD) role will aim to help drive
improvement in services going forward, through expert oversight, audit and support. Iain Threlkeld went on to explain the benefits
of initiating a department audit – there are some key advantages of working with an expert on identifying areas for improvement: “Every department has things that they can do better, and an audit will allow you to push your director to give you the resources you need to make the recommended changes. It also enables departments to provide assurances to their senior management team that they know what they are doing.” However, John Sandham added that there is also a need for increased investment in HealthTech: “Toyota came into the car manufacturing scene in the 1950s and introduced new technology which made them more efficient and made them able to manufacture cars quicker and better than Ford – it took Ford 20 years to catch up; that’s the benefit of technology. “There is lots of good software and
technology that will make patient care better, safer and more efficient, but the problem is that the NHS only invests around 3% of its annual budget in technology, whereas Toyota invests around 44%. So, if you really want to make technology work for you, you’ve got to put more money into technology, instead of trying to shrink the budget.” All too often, Trusts ask, where can you
save us money? How can you make these old assets last longer? John Sandham warns that this is the wrong approach. “They should be saying, what assets can
we buy to make us more efficient?” he commented, adding that even when Trusts are given expert advice and direction, they are unable to take it forward because they “haven’t got the money to spend on the assets.” The current status quo is too short sighted, in his view. While the need for investment in connectivity and technology was at the forefront of discussion, this inevitably
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prompted members of the EBME Expo Leaders Network to raise the issue of cybersecurity. They highlighted the risk posed by increasing dependency on information technology and connectivity, in “a world that is becoming more and more uncertain and unsafe.” It was suggested that, if we are moving towards increasing connectivity, it should also be supported by “an enormous amount of investment in cybersecurity”.
EBME: global perspectives While the Network focused mainly on the challenges faced by the EBME sector in the UK’s NHS, it was also reminded of parts of the globe where the situation is much more critical. According to the WHO between 50% and 70% of all medical devices in Sub-Saharan African hospitals and clinics are out of service
at any one time, and this has a huge impact on the ability of these nations to provide effective healthcare. A significant cause of this is the chronic shortage of adequately trained biomedical engineers in many of these countries. The Amalthea Trust is a non-profit
organisation that helps to provide the support, practical experience and know-how necessary for professionals in low resource settings to self-maintain their own countries’ medical devices, thus helping to improve healthcare delivery for millions of people.3 Martin Worster, Programme Director at the Amalthea Trust, cast a light on the immense challenges faced by the sector in low resource countries: “What people don’t realise is that there were very few biomedical engineering training courses, let alone departments, in most
DON'T MISS TARGETED DIAGNOSIS FOR TROPICAL FEVER.
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